


Learned Helplessness

by dieofthatroar



Series: Learned Helplessness 'Verse [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Coming Out, Gratuitous use of the m-dash because the boys are bad at communication, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutually Toxic Relationship, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Substance Abuse, Unhealthy Relationships, in regards to past jack/kent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 06:24:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dieofthatroar/pseuds/dieofthatroar
Summary: It’s 2008 and to Kent, Jack kisses like he’s drowning. Like Kent is the only thing keeping him afloat and it shouldn’t be like that, it couldn’t, but Kent loves it too much to care. He’ll let himself be used as a rudder, as a safety net, as a punching bag, if Jack really needs. Kent will be the one to think about tomorrow.It’s 2017 and Bitty finds Jack up and pacing past midnight. It’s night before a game, which is why Jack can’t find sleep, but not why he can’t find words. It’s the night before a specific game that haunts him more than others and Bitty is still trying to figure out exactly why.Tomorrow, the Falconers play the Aces.And still, Jack won’t say the name Kent.





	Learned Helplessness

**Author's Note:**

> For veekay, to whom I gift one scene with tears and the single worst line I’ve ever written in a sex scene

**2017**

Once in a while, Bitty notices a tick of Jack’s. It’s usually before a game, always when Jack thinks he’s alone, and so small it takes him months to see it at all. A flick of his fingers to his pocket. A quick, grasping movement he does before realizing there’s nothing there for him to reach for. Bitty, standing by the open door to the kitchen of their shared apartment, watches as Jack realizes he’s reaching for air for the hundredth time. Jack’s fingers ball into a fist instead.

 

**2007**

When Kent first met Jack, he thought he was nothing special. Big name, soft eyes, and not even the decency to greet him properly. Kent would figure out quick that it was just how Jack was off the ice, all awkward self-consciousness that would bleed into every movement he made. His long pauses before answering questions, as if each were an essay question to get _right_.

On ice, he was different. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the same self-doubt. It was that he was so practiced in getting the right answers that it looked effortless. If he did worry about a shot or a play, the pauses and stumbling and gritted teeth came later, when the skates came off and they had their feet on solid ground again. Then, Jack would let himself come apart.

Kent first learned to respect on-ice Jack. The brilliant skater that could make _him_ feel good, just to be on his line. Respect turned to awe turned to fierce competition and back to awe–the way one smile from Jack during a celly could turn Kent’s stomach and make him want to be better.

So, Kent fell in love with Jack off the ice, despite everything.

On long road trips, when Jack would fall asleep with one earbud from Kent’s iPod still stuck in his ear, Kent would turn the music down instead of taking it out because he liked having an excuse to stay that close. In the locker room, he’d use Jack’s shoulder to steady himself as he toed off his shoes. When he could convince Jack to follow him to a party, he promised never to leave his side. He passed him drinks and sat in the quiet corner of the living room, content to chat while laughter bounced around them.

In another universe, Kent would have been happy there. They could have stayed close friends and good teammates. Kent could have let his feelings simmer and fizzle out, keeping those warm nights in twin beds and cold mornings with the sun casting long shadows onto the ice as perfect things. To be admired on the shelf, like a framed portrait, but not touched. Not destroyed by many hands ripping it apart. 

But god damn, Kent was never good at delayed gratification. He never thought ahead far enough to see that reaching out and caressing Jack’s neck with the back of his hand was a bad idea. Didn’t think crawling into the already-warmed covers when Jack said he didn’t want to be alone the night before a game would turn into habit. Didn’t think a stolen kiss behind a locked bathroom stall could ever be anything but wonderful.

“We can’t,” Jack said, stilling at the sound of footsteps beyond their hotel room door. “If we get caught, it’ll be over, we’ll—“

Kent shut him up with a bite on the neck. “Do you ever stop thinking, man?”

“We’re already late,” Jack said, but his eyes weren’t on Kent’s, or even the door. It was toward the bathroom, where their toiletries were laid out side by side on the sink. Kent could feel him shake against his lips and it wasn’t the shiver he was trying to tease out of him.

Kent licked the spot where his teeth had just been and rolled out of the bed. “Gunna fuckin’ make me do it every time, still?” he said, padding over to the bathroom and switching the light on. He grabbed a bottle of pills and tossed them to Jack’s waiting hands. “I’ll get your water bottle too, hold on.”

“Don’t have to do everything for me—“

“Don’t have to try to _hide_ it from me, idiot.”

Jack swallowed his medication. “Fuck you, too.”

“You got your tie?” Kent asked, shrugging on a jacket and fixing his rumpled hair in the mirror. “Like you said, we’ve gotta get downstairs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack said and tucked the bottle into the pocket of his pants.

 

**2017**

There’s something else Bitty notices over late nights when the other side of the bed stays cold and the light in the living room flickers on.

Usually, Jack is very deliberate about asking for help. It’s subtle but pointed. A hand on Bitty’s when he’s in the middle of mixing batter, or a soft question and a nod to the couch during a conversation. Bitty likes that about him because it shows how much he’s grown. It reminds him of conversations he’d had with Shitty about the ways to _be there_ for a friend who may not want you _there_. It reminds him of how Lardo knew exactly when to join him in the kitchen for a slice of pie and a BBC period drama marathon.

But those late nights that he doesn’t get a call from across the country, or he only hears the rattle pans in the kitchen from behind a closed bedroom door, Bitty wonders what went wrong. What distance he’ll have to navigate to find Jack again, behind the thick fog of whatever thoughts he’s wound himself up in.

“Jack, honey?” Bitty calls, rubbing his eyes when the light from the hall hits him. His tongue is sleep-heavy and his feet are freezing on the wooden floors. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, bud, go back to sleep.”

Jack’s at the window, staring more at his own reflection than down at the empty midnight streets of Providence. It’s a look Bitty’s seen before, though it’s faded over time as Jack’s gotten better at talking out his problems. When the word _anxiety_ didn’t sound like a curse and instead, like an annoying neighbor that keeps visiting when nobody wants them around.

And like a good, southern boy, Bitty greets everyone like an old friend and feeds them with pie and laughter.

“It’s not nothing,” Bitty says as he comes up behind him, wrapping his arms around Jack’s middle.

Jack’s throat bobs against something he can’t say—won’t let himself say—and it feels, to Bitty, like they’re back at Samwell with secrets between them.

“’M fine,” Jack says, pushing Bitty’s touch away. He smells like old sweat, though he knows Jack took a shower that night after practice. His hands on Bitty’s feel like lead.

“Do you want to talk about—“

 _“No,”_ Jack hisses and takes another step away. Bitty can see the contours of Jack’s forearms as his fingers twist against the bottom of his shirt. It’s a warning: don’t get close. One more tell of Jack’s Bitty files away for future use.

“I’m going to heat up some milk,” Bitty says. “Settle your stomach, get you to bed?”

“Don’t need—“          

 _“I_ need you to fall asleep. So, either you tell me what’s going on, or you eat what I give you, hm?”  

When he turns, Bitty can feel Jack’s eyes on his back.

He follows without another word.

When the steaming mug is placed in front of him, Jack sniffs it and closes his eyes. With a table between them and the minutes passing later, Jack’s shoulders roll back and he leans against the table.

“Shitty used to spike these,” he says, voice still rough. _“Just like eggnog, Jack. Now crawl in front of a fireplace and snooze a bit.”_

“Shitty used to spike everything,” Bitty says. “I’m glad you had him when you got to school.”

“Not sure I could have done it without him.” Jack takes a sip.

Bitty pours his own drink and sits across the table, running a finger across the handle of the mug. He remembers hearing stories from the days before he entered Samwell. Shitty and Johnson and even some seniors, Macky and Ellis, from Jack’s frog year. Stories that Jack spouted easily at dinners and outings… _this one time, Macky drove us to Boston to see the aquarium just so see the penguins because he had some bet going…_ But somehow, he’d never heard anything from Jack’s days in the Q. No casual stories or mentions of friends. Nothing.

“And before that?” Bitty asks, aware of how his voice wavers. “Did you have someone watching out for you then?”

Jack freezes, milk is halfway raised to his lips, like if he’s afraid if he opens his mouth, something he won’t like would come tumbling out.

It’s the night before a game, which is why Jack can’t find sleep, but not why he can’t find words. It’s the night before a _specific_ game that haunts him more than others and Bitty is still trying to figure out exactly why.

Tomorrow, the Falconers play the Aces.

And still, Jack won’t say the name Kent.

 

**2008**

Sometimes, Jack kissed like he was drowning. Like Kent was the only thing keeping him afloat and it shouldn’t be like that, it couldn’t, but Kent loved it too much to care. He would let himself be used as a rudder, as a safety net, as a punching bag, if it was what Jack really needed because he’d rather have that than nothing at all.

Every Friday, after practice, Kent followed Jack back to his place. They played video games and wrestled over the better controller, the one that didn’t have a sticky X button, and talked until it gets dark and Alicia yelled at them both to come down to dinner. Kent snuck beers they were too young for up to Jack’s room where they devoured them one by one. The alcohol slowed Jack down enough to keep the smile on his face. Relaxed him enough to stop second-guessing every stray touch Kent left on his stomach. Even on the days they had a game the next morning, Kent would hand Jack another can, and another, and another. _Especially_ on the days they had a game in the morning because Kent knew full well that if he didn’t, Jack wouldn’t get any sleep at all and would hate himself more when he messed up on the ice.

Kent wasn’t good enough for Jack’s smile, didn’t deserve the kind looks and praise and the breathless _Kenny_ ’s he got when Jack’s dick was in his mouth, but he cuddled him still when they both went boneless and heavy-lidded in sticky sheets.

Those Friday nights, that turned to Mondays and Wednesdays and nearly every day when their skates came off, kept Jack calm. Kept him easy on the benzos and easier on himself. Kent would do anything for a hum, deep in Jack’s chest, and a warm _thank you_.

Before games, Kent would slather peanut butter and strawberry jam onto white bread and shove it into Jack’s hand. “Eat, you brute,” he’d say. “The rink’ll still be there in half an hour.” Alicia laughed and said they could eat in the car and Bob wished them good luck as they ran out the door.

The nights when it got too much for Jack, Kent couldn’t go to Jack’s parents because they’d think he’d messed up. Because Kent knew that Jack wouldn’t want their help—the nightmares had Bob’s face half the time, after all. Those nights, Kent would knock and knock and knock on the bathroom door until Jack unlocked it.

“Zimms,” Kent said, voice level and flat. He crouched down beside where Jack was sitting against the bathtub, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re fine, man. You’re good.”

Jack shoved him away with all the force a teenaged athlete could muster. Kent flew the two feet into the sink, hitting his head on the ceramic. It wasn’t bad, he had checks every day that felt worse, but it stunned him.

“Not good, okay, fine,” Kent said, finding his feet again. His ears were ringing. “What do you need? I’ll get it for you, just let me know. Let me—“

Jack didn’t hear him. When Kent got close enough again, Jack only swatted him away. The muscled arms that were so precise on the ice were powerful things. His fists hit Kent’s sides and his chest and his stomach, but Kent weathered it all to get close enough to wrap his arms around Jack’s shoulders. Press his whole weight onto them like he was a leaden blanket and smother the low whine that was building in Jack’s throat.

He deserved the bruises if Kent couldn’t keep Jack from getting to this place. He was meant to prevent this. He was meant to make it better.

But all he could do was whisper in Jack’s ear as he curled himself around him. “You’re okay, breathe. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Jack. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Breathe.”

And finally, Jack reached up and found Kent’s hand and pulled him closer.

 

**2017**

In the morning, Bitty prepares Jack a PB&J from one of his favorite recipes. The ratios all correct, the smooth edges of the freshly baked bread cut off at perfect angles. Bitty has pride in his creations, every single one. There’s no reason to work less hard on something he makes all the time.

Jack wakes up an hour after Bitty does, bleary-eyed but wary. A ghost of the previous night is still in his posture and the way he watches Bitty before saying good morning.

“Just about done here,” Bitty says, wrapping up the sandwich and putting it in a bag. “Ready to head out?”

Jack nods. “Thanks, Bits.”

“It’s the blueberry one again since I’ve finally found some fresh fruits at the market last weekend and—“

“No, I mean—I mean last night.” Jack opens his arms to let Bitty close. “I’m sorry about how I was—well, I’m sorry.”

“Jack…” Bitty says but doesn’t push it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that sometimes when Jack was a little too far gone, he was using the wrong manual to read him. The touches that usually work would fall flat against his back and Jack would reach up for a body that isn’t there. Isn’t his.

 

Bitty watches the Falconers game from home, keeping his phone by his side because the SMH chat still becomes active when Jack is on and Bitty may or may not want to tweet his way through this one.

But throughout the game, Bitty realizes he’s giving more and more attention to the Aces captain—his freckled face in close shots, the way he handles the puck around the Falconers defense. Kent Parson is a name that’s almost taboo, since the kegster. Taboo in his mind as much as in the household, but there he is on the screen. Not a ghost. Not an idea. Not the terrible things that weren’t meant for Bitty’s ears. A man in pads and a biting grin on his face as he goes head to head against Jack.

 _It really wasn’t anything more than physical,_ Jack had said, once.

But Jack never talks about it, does he?

 

**2008**

Kent drew dreams across the ceiling of Jack’s bedroom, months before the draft. They wouldn’t end up on the same team, they couldn’t, but they could still be best friends. They would get traded, eventually, and someday reunite in a partnership that nobody could beat. The teams would _want_ them together, wouldn’t they?

He opened another pack of beer because he could feel his breathing getting shallow with Jack’s.

“Can you imagine facing off against each other?”

Jack turned grabbed Kent’s wrist, pulling them both down so they could lie flat on the bed. His grip was hard but it felt good, felt real, to Kent. “Isn’t that what this is?”

Jack kissed him, hard. All teeth and nails and weight on Kent’s chest. And Kent opened up for him. Let him in and in and in.

They _fucked_ because _love_ was a forbidden word that would destroy them both, out there, in the real world. This act was a ticking time bomb that would blow up in their faces sooner rather than later. Never in Kent’s twisting of fantasy futures would they come out. There was never a way in a year, two years, ten years that they’d be happy and married and winning cups.

So, Kent joked and fooled around and agreed whenever Jack said it was nothing. So, Kent nodded and kissed him and said yes every time Jack told him he was beautiful.

So, Kent let Jack enter him without enough preparation because both of them were already too drunk to think of how it’d feel in the morning. And maybe he deserved it, for talking like he was. He needed a reminder of how much it would always hurt.

 

**2017**

Bitty does something stupid that evening after the Aces win by a slim margin in a heated final period and after he’d called Jack to see when he would be home. He just can’t stop thinking about Jack’s face last night. The cracked and aged fear there. Connecting that pain to a man he watched celebrate with a practiced smirk and self-satisfied praise on national TV. Something short-circuits in Bitty’s mind and he’s replaying old memories like Beyoncé music videos on repeat and…

Bitty calls Kent.

He does it because he can’t stand the echo of years-old insults narrating every game Jack has to play against Las Vegas. He does it because he’s curious and that may be a fatal flaw. And he does it because Bitty catches a look on Kent’s face as he skated off the ice wasn’t that of victory, but of old loss. He knows that look, because he sees it on himself every time he goes back to Georgia where’s he’s finally out, but realizes it doesn’t feel like home anymore. And that doesn’t line up in the narrative he keeps trying to tell himself.

Kent picks up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“This is probably completely out of line, but please, hear me out before you tell me to fuck off?”

“That’s one of the more interesting conversations starters I’ve had,” Kent says and the voice is both familiar and not. It’s the voice from the casual part of the kegster, before Kent went upstairs. When he’d posed for a selfie and sauntered off to play pong. A laugh behind the line that’s almost practiced, but not as much as it is for the cameras. “Who’s this?”

“Eric Bittle,” Bitty says, taking a breath. “Jack’s… um. Jack’s…”

“Oh,” Kent says.

There’s silence on the line, but Kent doesn’t hang up.

“It’s just… I can’t figure out why—what happened that messed him up so much but, lord, he doesn’t tell me anything, but there must be a _reason_ he won’t say,” Bitty says. He hadn’t planned on getting this far. There was a phone in his hand and a number he stole from Jack’s phone weeks ago and a burst of bravery that now, he doesn’t know how to follow up. He babbles. “And I hate it, every time he gets like he does—when he keeps expecting me to say something and I can’t do anything to help. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about because even if I don’t know you, I know him, and he keeps looking at me like I’m supposed to _tell_ him something but—it’s you, isn’t it? He keeps looking for you.”

Bitty exhales and finds he’s trembling.

“You’re that kid, aren’t you?” Kent says and his voice has found its way back to the smooth, practiced version that’s on TV. “The little blonde one from the party.”

“Wh- Um, yeah, I guess—“

“The hell are you calling me for? You just think I fucked him up more than he already was.”

“I did think that, before,” Bitty says. “But I hoped—“

“So, why are you rubbing it in my face?”

“—you’d know how to help him. What? I’m not rubbing—“

“I haven’t had a real conversation with Zimms in years,” Kent says. “What makes you think I know anything about him now?”

“Lord, I honestly don’t know anything about _you_ ,” Bitty says. “I just thought you’d understand.”

“Sorry, but doesn’t that strike you as strange? You’re the one calling me, asking how to handle your own— _shit_ —and he hasn’t told you anything about me?”

“He only told me that it didn’t mean anything.”

Kent laughed, hard and sharp. It sounded like a knife through the phone, static punctuating the end. “Do you believe that? Knowing him?”

“Jack doesn’t do anything with half a heart.”

“And that’s why you called.”

Bitty chews the bottom of his lip and lets out a sigh. On the other end of the line, he hears players shouting, _Parser, you coming?_ A rustle and drifting whooping from far away.

“I gotta go,” Kent says.

“Um, yeah. Of course,” Bitty says. “Congrats on your win. The last goal was great.”

Parse coughs. “Yeah, sure,” he says and the line goes dead.

 

**2009**

Kent found another empty pill bottle inside Jack’s jacket. One more to go with the one hidden under his bed and the other one nestled up in the medicine cabinet. He was supposed to be keeping tabs on how many he took each day, supposed to take them away, but he hid them in taped baggies on the bottom of the sink where Kent would never look.

When Kent got to Jack’s place, he found Jack was already drunk on vodka he’d poached from Bob’s locked collection.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Kent said. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Wi’ me?” Jack said. “Wha’s wrong wi’ you?”

“You’ve been lying to me! You _promised me_ you were doing fine.”

Kent lunged for the bottle, trying to pry it away from Jack’s hands, but his fingers slipped on the neck and Jack lurched to the side. It ended up smashed on the kitchen floor, shards shining in the light, the smell making Kent dizzy.

Jack’s eyes were shot red and blown wide as he swayed and pitched. Kent put both his arms out, trying to make sure Jack didn’t step on the sharp edges or slip in the spill. Jack, though, was moving with his head held high like there was nothing at all wrong. Nothing at all for Kent to protect him from.

The glass tore holes in Kent’s socks and left blood tracks on the tile.

Jack’s dark look down his nose ripped pieces of Kent’s heart out like he was nothing.

“Fuck you,” Kent hissed. “Fuck all this you make me deal with. What’s going to happen when the draft comes around, huh? You’ll _still_ be _so_ messed up, but at least it won’t be my problem, will it?”

Jack stumbled as raised a hand to Kent. Kent dodged easily. “Don’ need you.”

“Hah, yeah. Sure,” Kent said. “You know what all the coaches say? That I’d be nothing without you. That the only reason I got to this point is because _you_ were there leading the way. I had to go through all these fucking years digging myself out of your shadow just to realize I’m not even there. I’m a _shadow_ of a _shadow_ and I’m _done._ ”

“Gunna walk away, Kenny?” Jack spat. “Do it jus’ like your dad?”

Kent growled. “I’m not your fucking _husband_ , Zimms.”

“You wanna be,” Jack said. “Wan’ a white fence an’ a cat an’ everyone callin’ you a fuckin’ _fag_ on the ice.”

“Zimms…”

“Never gunna let you play. _Really_ play. Tha’s all you’ll be.”

Kent backed up, a foot to the hall and a foot still covered in vodka and blood. “Fuck you,” he said and walked out.

 

**2017**

Bitty has the Aces game on in the background as he’s cooking dinner. By all accounts, they should have already secured an easy victory against the Sharks tonight, but the score tells a different story. Bitty can’t help but notice the strain in Kent’s eyes. There was a brawl in the second period, more violent than usual. Kent was at its center. Bitty is chopping carrots as the announcers blather on and on about how the Aces are in a downward spiral. How there’s nothing interesting anymore about Kent’s game and that he did better as the wunderkind straight out of the draft. _When he had more of an edge, don’t you think? There was fire in his playing, back then._

Jack walks in as Bitty turns on the burner. “Really?” he says, nodding at the screen.

“I was a hockey fan before I ever met you, mister,” he says. “Falconers don’t get a monopoly on my attention.”

“Didn’t know you were interested in the… Sharks this season.”

“Can’t say Chowder didn’t have a part in that.”

Jack’s staring at the screen as Kent flies by the camera and Bitty sees the muscles in his neck tense.

“It’ll just be ten more minutes, sweetheart. Want to set the table?” Bitty says.

“Yeah,” Jack says, blinking and finding himself again. “Yeah, sure. Forks?”

The TV keeps playing as Bitty plates the pasta and pours himself a glass of water. The game ended, 4-1 Sharks and Kent’s post-game interview appears on the screen. Bitty gets a glimpse of his face, a thin veil of a neutral smile to hide the frustration underneath before Jack shuts it off.

“Do you think…” Bitty starts, then taps his finger against the lip of his drink. “Do you know if Parson’s okay?”

Jack digs into his dinner, chewing slowly and deliberately. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for him.”

“Sorry? No…” Bitty doesn’t think _sorry_ is the right word for what he feels. Concerned, maybe. Struck by the realization that Kent may be just as stuck in his past as Jack pretends not to be. That while Jack has Bitty to ask how he’s doing when he loses, he doesn’t know if Kent has anyone that isn’t a teammate. And hell, Kent probably still hates him, even more after calling like he did, but when Bitty takes the time to _look_ for a change, he can’t get himself to hate him back anymore. “He just—he doesn’t usually play like that.”

“Everyone has off days,” Jack says.

“A lot of the time,” Bitty says, “yours are for a reason.”

Jack shoots him a look across the table and huffs. “Harsh, Bittle.”

“I played with you for enough time to know.”

“You just _know_. Time doesn’t have to be a qualifier.”

Bitty smiles. “Thanks for the confidence, but I’m serious.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” Jack says. “I haven’t for a while. So no, I have no idea what’s going on with him.”

Jack stands abruptly and puts his dishes in the sink before asking about the pies in the fridge. Bitty swats him away from the ones they need for the potluck the next day at Tater’s and hands him some blondies he baked earlier. He pouts, but he takes it, kissing Bitty on the top of his head with a mouth full of crumbs.

 

The next day, Bitty is less stupid but still impulsive. He calls Kent again.

He’s surprised when Kent picks up—he’s either not saved his number or doesn’t mind—but this time, Bitty’s more prepared with what he wants to say.

“I was raised in a good southern family,” Bitty says when he hears Kent on the other side. “And even if they have some backward ideas, making sure your friends are alright isn’t one of those, and I couldn’t leave our conversation where I so rudely left it.”

“Is this Eric?” Kent says. A pause. “I’m not your friend.”

“I’m from the south,” Bitty says again. “Hun, everyone’s a friend. Even your enemies are your friends.”

“So I’m your—“

“Not mutually exclusive is what I’m saying. Don’t read too much into it.”

“Why the hell are you talking to me again?”

“I was wrong in how I conducted our last conversation,” Bitty says. “As I said. I asked you about something personal and it wasn’t right for me to have—“

“God, Eric, you sound like you’re in an interview.”

“Lord, sorry, I—I wrote notes.”

“You…” Bitty can hear Kent’s laughter, pulled back from the phone speakers. “That’s, um, almost endearing?”

“Almost?” Bitty says.

“It can be fully endearing if you go ahead and finish,” Kent says. There’s humor in his voice now that Bitty had never heard before. He takes a breath.

“It wasn’t right for me to have forced you to talk like that. Though, you sounded like you needed someone to talk to.”

“And that person is supposed to be you?”

“Well,” Bitty says. “I have no control over anyone but myself, so—“

“But, J—“

“I’m not Jack’s keeper. And I said I was wrong. This isn’t about him.”

Kent clicks his tongue. “Yeah, right. There’s no reason for you to care about _me.”_

Bitty hears the easy self-deprecation. The not-quite sad, but perhaps resigned, quality to his answer. Bitty has visions of empty rooms and late-night phone calls that wake him when time zones are off but are important, to him and Jack both. He thinks of the tentative way they’d come out to their friends, to Jack’s teammates, and their parents. There’s comfort in the knowledge that Bitty has many people he can talk to, even when in the moment, he has to lie. Kent doesn’t sound at all like that.

“There’s reason enough for you to be cared for by _someone_ , Kent.”

There’s a satisfied hum over the phone. “Yes, I was right. Endearing.”

Bitty sighs. “I’m trying to be genuine, but if you can’t—“

“No, no,” Kent says. “It was a great talk, Cap’n. Good work.”

“Listen to what I’m—wait, did you know that I was captain?”

Bitty can hear Kent’s laugh go from chirp to bashful in a moment. “I might have looked you up?”

“You what?”

“You called me out of nowhere, Eric. I was protecting my safety, as a well-known public figure. Making sure you weren’t a serial killer or something.”

“Wow.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“You really think I’m a serial killer?”

“Nope. Not after, what was it, the fourth video on pie crusts?”

“You _watched my videos?”_

“I sent them to my sister,” Kent says. “They’re good.”

Bitty’s off script now and has no idea what to say next. The next bullet point on his note card says _tell him about the value of honesty to those closest to you_ but it seems a little trite at this point. “Um… thanks?”

And then, surprisingly, they talk. They talk like they aren’t made of glass or plaster or gold or silver. They joke like Bitty knows how to joke with hockey boys, even if they aren’t his own, and somehow, it feels good. It wasn’t supposed to, but it does.

“Is this going to be a thing?” Kent asks, more tentatively than he did about sending Bitty pictures of Kit.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Bitty says. “I’m not… I know I’m not—“

Kent cuts him off. “I saw you were the first out NCAA hockey captain,” he says. “I saw an article before you called me the first time. I didn’t realize it was _you_ until, well—and I wanted to say, I respect that. And, you may be right.”

“About?”

“Talking to someone.”  

 

The next day, Bitty gets a text:

_Kent (8:50pm): tried to make pie crust #3_

_Kent (8:51pm): not as easy as advertised :(_

Bitty smiles into his phone. Hockey boys, mostly useless.

_Eric (8:53pm): try my beginner series_

_Eric (8:53pm): starts with the four ingredient cookies. Nobody can mess those up_

_Kent (8:53pm): excuse me, I am no beginner_

_Eric (8:54pm): sure, honey :P_

 

**2009**

Kent should have been happy.

He’d gotten everything he worked so hard for. On the ice and off, he’d made it to the NHL and he was packing for Vegas. He’d _made it_ and all the news outlets were writing stories about _him._

But he was alone in the room that had been his for three years. He’d already said goodbye to his billet family, already dumped by the couple who he’d never been that close to, anyway. He should have been calling his sister or his mother or his old coaches, but he can’t get himself to celebrate.

Kent should have been crying.

He didn’t deserve any of this, not without Jack. But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was broken bottles and empty pill bottles and Jack, not moving. Not yelling at him or pushing him away. Just, still. Cold.

He couldn’t feel anything without Jack, but he wouldn’t see him and Jack’s parents didn’t care enough to call. Why should they? To thank him for finding their son when it was Kent’s mistakes that had killed him. Half-killed him? Almost killed him? Whatever it was, it was his fault; they must have known. They blamed him and so they helped Jack carve him from his life. He didn’t hear anything from the hospital, or the days following. Knew nothing, except that Jack was alive. Even that, he got from the same news outlets posting about him.

There was nothing left in Montreal for him except his skates and his bag and the pair of pants he kept folding and unfolding and stuffing back into his bag before ripping out again. He was supposed to get on a plane early tomorrow morning, before focusing on the next tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. For now, his phone is silent and the silence is cold.

 

**2017**

Jack tastes like Bitty’s maple apple pie and Shitty once said that’s like he’s tasting his own come on Jack’s tongue and since then, Bitty hasn’t been able to get that thought out of his head. Fuck Shitty, sometimes.

Jack gasps as Bitty wraps a hand around his cock and he finds he doesn’t care what Shitty says about their love lives. Jack holds him like he’s precious and looks at him like he’s a light and Bitty still can’t believe he can make the man squirm.

And Jack’s so alive under Bitty, touching every free patch of skin and pulling at his boxers to free up more. Bitty makes him come alive. The moonlight filters through the half-open curtains and soon, the covers get too hot to stay inside. And it feels like he’s basking in the sun, down in Georgia, when he could forget the world around him and just focus on the stretch of his limbs out on the porch and the sweet scent of the air.

Bitty lets Jack touch and explore and wonder at him, the last of his clothes off and lost beside the bed. He finds the sensitive spot just below his collarbone and sucks at it and Bitty curls his toes around the feeling.

“Mmm, love that,” he says.

“Love _you_ ,” Jack whispers back and pulls him into a bear of a hug to flip them over. He rests his forehead on Bitty’s for a moment, holding himself above him by his forearms, and Bitty can tell he’s smiling by the wrinkle in his brow and the ghost of a kiss that follows.

Bitty wraps his leg around Jack and pulls him closer. “You, Mr. Zimmermann, are a tease. Come here.”

The first time they had sex, Jack acted like he would break Bitty. Like every touch was fire and would burn, would scar. Jack counted Bitty’s vertebrae one by one by running his fingers over each, getting used to being so close. He wrapped his arms around Bitty’s shoulders and pulled him into his lap, using his tongue to map the contours of his chest. He asked, again and again, if what they were doing was okay. If it hurt. If Bitty wanted to leave. And Bitty tried as hard as he could not to think of why he would need to ask like he did.

Instead, Bitty giggled into Jack’s hair and said that this was good. That this was nothing like hockey, like checking, and that he wasn’t afraid. Jack shouldn’t be afraid either.

Now, Jack ruts against him and Bitty can’t form full words anymore. “J-Jack—fuck, baby.”

“As you wish,” Jack says with a deep laugh that fills the whole room.

 

After, when they’re both still breathing hard into sweaty pillows, Bitty reaches for his phone.

“Addicted,” Jack says and Bitty shrugs.

“I have a following to attend to.”

Bitty quickly scrolls through twitter, though with only half his attention, as his other half is still drowsy and cuddled against Jack’s side. There are a couple unread messages in the SMH group chat, one text from Lardo, and one from Kent.

They had the beginnings of a comfortable thing going in the past few weeks. Pictures of pies and cats and light-hearted chirping Bitty would do with any of his Samwell teammates. Sometimes, it’s a good luck text before a game ( _now don’t go thinking I’m changing loyalties, hun)_ and sometimes, it’s small things that mean more _(danced with a guy who didn’t recognize me. Told me I could pass for a professional athlete if I worked a little harder. Should I be offended or flattered?_ ). Kent had said that many of the guys on the team knew, that Swoops was a great friend and supporter. That he was fine, really. But still, he texted Bitty.

Bitty opens the new text and finds a photo of a cake from the recipe in his last video. It doesn’t look half bad, though the icing is runny and thin. It must have been poured while the cake was still too hot.

_Eric (10:45pm): I can see your impatience from here_

“You’re talking to Parson,” Jack says.

It’s a quiet sound, a wisp. Bitty holds the phone steady, suddenly overly aware of the blue glow that hangs in the middle of the bed, Jack looking up at him with a squint. He’s waiting for Bitty to deny it, to lay him back to bed with the fantasy he’s been holding on to for so long, that his past would never touch his present.

“I am,” Bitty says.

Jack extracts himself from Bitty’s limbs and the mess of sheets and stalks to the living room. The door rattles as it hits the stopper and when Bitty drops the phone, the bedroom plunges back into the darkness of night.

“Jack,” Bitty says, scrambling for his PJ pants and sweater. Jack’s back is visible just beyond the couch, broad and still naked. _“Jack.”_

“For how long?” he says.

“I’m not _cheating_ on you, Jack, what the hell.”

Jack twists, baring his teeth. Most of the time, Bitty forgets how much bigger Jack is than him. How much weight is behind those muscles and how much power can go into one of his checks when he wants it. The lonely light from the kitchen is all that’s on in the apartment and the shadows make thorns over Jack’s body.

“There’s no reason for you to be texting my—my ex.”

“Oh, so is that what he is?”

“You _know—“_

“No, I don’t,” Bitty says, his voice matching Jack’s. He tries to take time to compose his thoughts. To wrangle all of the little pieces that don’t quite fit together and make them real. “He isn’t a monster under your bed. _He_ isn’t your whole _past._ ”

“Bits—“

“No, listen. I don’t know what happened between you two, but I’m sick of you pretending he doesn’t exist at all.”

“I wasn’t—“

“Oh, honey, you were.”

“Then why hide it?” Jack says, inching up on Bitty. His fist hits the end of the table with a sharp _bang_. “Why not tell me?”

“Maybe because I knew you’d react like this,” Bitty says, keeping his eyes on Jack’s hands instead of his face. They shake and make fists that open and close. “Maybe I was scared.”

Jack blinks. Stops. Stumbles back three steps and into a chair, collapsing into the seat and sinking his head between his legs. “Shit,” he says. “I didn’t—I’ve gotten better than this, shit.”

 “Hey, hey,” Bitty says, kneeling down so he can get close. Jack is quiet and even though his face is hidden, Bitty can picture perfectly his frown.

“See,” Jack says. “You wouldn’t have liked me, how I was in the Q.”

“Sweetheart, I didn’t much like you my frog year either.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve seen you change a lot since I met you,” Bitty says. “Don’t think I can’t imagine you were different way back then, too.”

 

The next morning, after heading out to work, Bitty receives a text:

_Jack (8:55am): I owe you more than an apology_

_Jack (8:56am): But for now know I’m sorry and that I’ll do my best to make it up to you_

**2010**

The ice was a much more forgiving lover.

There were good days and bad days, but if Kent worked hard enough, he could bend it to his whim and come out the victor. No, that wasn’t quite right. There was never a winner in a relationship. They would come out partners instead, so coordinated nothing could come between them. He could pour himself out, whole, every skate so he could sleep when he got home.

Kent was the last out of the locker room, every day. After the steam of the showers burnt his back, he had the luxury of not having to speak to anyone unless he had to. He wasted away the time he’d spend checking his phone for messages that never came.

_Kent (July 1, 3:24am): Please, say something_

_Kent (July 1, 3:24am): I know you didn’t change your phone number_

_Kent (July 1, 3:31am): It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to me but at least tell me to shut up._

_Kent (July 1, 3:45am): I’m terrified and I don’t know what to do_

_Kent (July 4, 5:45pm): I miss you_

_Kent (Aug 3, 12:01am): Happy birthday, Zimms. I hope you’re doing ok_

_Kent (Aug 6, 3:43pm): One of the guys has a dog that reminds me of that poodle across the street from you_

_Kent (Aug 6, 3:43pm): Except this one doesn’t have a lazy eye and actually sits when you tell it to_

_Kent (Aug 6, 3:43pm): Its name is Dizzy_

_Kent (Oct. 30, 10:56am): Mom’s here visiting_

_Kent (Oct. 30, 10:56am): She told me she was proud of me so I told her I slept with men_

_Kent (Oct. 30, 10:57am): I don’t know what I’m doing_

_Kent (Nov. 21, 5:31pm): Did you know it never gets cold here? I keep waiting for the winter to come but the sun never fucking goes away._

_Kent (Nov. 21, 5:32pm): I think I’ll miss the snow._

“Hey, Parse.” Kent looked up from his phone, still only half-dressed, hair dripping. There was Jeff in front of him, bag hanging off his shoulder and water bottle in a loose grip by his side. “You coming?”

“To…?”

“Shit, didn’t you hear? Cookout at Tom’s, whole team’s invited.”

“I—“

“I know you don’t usually come to these things,” Jeff said. “But Kelly’s is visiting and she’d like to meet everyone because she can’t stay for the next game.”

“I’m not sure.”

“Hey, man,” he said. “You’re proving yourself out there, anyone can see that. But if you want to really do well, you’ve gotta get to know the team.”

“I know them,” Kent said.

“Nah, I mean wives and kids and drunk off some cheap beer, even if we’re rich as fuck, know them. They want to feel like they trust you, kid.”

“Kid?”

“You’re a kid,” Jeff said. “A wee child. It’s okay. You’ll grow into your jersey, one day.”

“Hey.”

“So, you coming?”

Kent thought of white picket fences and kids playing in the yard. Of what trust meant when anyone asked him if he’s looking for a girl. But the look on Jeff’s face was genuine when he said he should come and Kent, well, Kent was tired of waiting for someone who would never answer.

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”

 

**2017**

Bitty works marketing and communications at a small non-profit in Providence. The hours are good, allowing Bitty time to dedicate to his vlogging and baking. It’s not something that feels permanent, but it’s a good job right out of college and will help him move in whatever direction he chooses in the future. Jack says it should be taking his baking to a more professional level, though Bitty’s a little nervous about making a passion tied to his only income. If he goes the marketing route, there’s opportunity to move into industries he’s more interested in.

He has time to decide.

_Kent (1:06pm): Ok but how much butter is actually too much butter?_

Bitty doesn’t quite understand this boy, but he gives him welcome distraction all the same. It isn’t like he’s moving quickly on the powerpoint he’s working on anyway.

_Eric (1:06pm): What units are we talking._

_Eric (1:06pm): Wait. Why are you asking?_

_Kent (1:07pm): I’m in an argument with the nutritionist and I’m saying I’m getting an expert opinion._

_Eric (1:08pm): Nope. Not might fight. No sir._

_Kent (1:08pm): Buuuuuuuut_

_Kent (1:08pm): How am I going to finish that pastry recipe if I don’t have an answer?_

_Eric (1:09pm): Here’s a healthy, protein-rich energy bar recipe instead_

_Eric (1:09pm): [attached sevengrainpeanutbar.pdf]_

_Kent (1:10pm): No fun_

_Kent (2:25pm): I was going to send you a new picture of Kit, but I decided you don’t deserve it._

_Kent (2:26pm): I got her a new collar and it’s so pretty._

_Kent (2:26pm): And I took her to the groomers yesterday_

_Kent (2:33pm): Nutritionist got back to me. Said I’m allowed one stick of butter for my recipe_

_Kent (2:42pm): Ericcccc what can I make with one whole stick of butter_

_Eric (2:45pm): Lord, I was in a meeting. Did you learn your manners from Kit?_

_Kent (2:46pm): :P Does that mean you want to see the picture?_

Bitty slides back into his rolling office chair, a pile of papers in hand—new graphics for flyers and online ads he has to look through before sending back comments. When his phone buzzes again, it’s indeed a picture of Kent’s cat, sitting on his living room couch like a queen. Kent’s hand is just in frame, reaching just behind her ear, and Bitty feels a rush of something like fondness. Like the first time Dex came to him for advice or the first time he’d ever met Chowder. As if this veteran NHL player needs his protection from anybody but an angry nutritionist, but still, the feeling is there all the same.

And Bitty feels guilt, again, for how long he thought of Kent as nothing but his anger. He still remembers the words, vividly as ever, thrown with every intention to hurt. But Bitty also remembers the words Jack through at _him_ his freshman year when hadn’t known what he had done wrong.

_Eric (3:11pm): What really happened that night at the kegster?_

It takes Kent longer to answer and Bitty’s packing up before he gets a reply.

_Kent (4:52pm): That isn’t only my story to tell._

 

**2014**

And there was Jack, a drink in hand and a boy at his side like it was so easy. As if Kent was being too dramatic when he asked to swap out the beer for water during flip-cup with the excuse that he had to get up early the next morning and he had to drive home.

It had been years since Kent had a drink, drunk instead on visions of bathroom floors and the stink of vomit. Years since he was in Jack’s orbit again, the last two, three, times cut short by Jack kicking him out. Again and again.

Kent had given up on alcohol, while Jack and had given up on Kent.

He looks back at his phone, from a text two weeks before.

_Jack (3:06pm): Tell Aces management to stop calling me_

He followed Jack upstairs because he’s a fucking masochist and always had been, cracking on fault lines he thought he’d reconstructed. Because when he first spotted him, when Jack hadn’t seen _him_ yet, his smile was there, bright and real. He looked like the Jack he’d kissed shyly on a Montreal summer night, shaking so hard with nerves that he’d missed his mouth entirely. Jack had stepped away and Kent was ready for rejection, but instead, Jack’s eyes lit up and his mouth turned hungry. He gripped Kent by the back of the head and pulled him back in. Kent never quite recovered.

As soon as Jack met his eyes across that dirty, frat house floor, that look vanished. In its place was the snarled lip and narrowed eyes Kent used to only see when people called him _Bad Bob’s kid._ False expectations and dirty whispers. Something to be left behind and forgotten.

And fuck if Kent didn’t seethe from that look. How _dare_ he play house in this godforsaken hellhole and act as if _Kent_ was the one who always shit on their dreams. Did he forget what they had to give up to reach for the NHL? Forget what it had cost them both?

“What kind of fucked up fantasy are you living in, Zimms?” Kent said when he’d finally cornered him in his room.

“It’s not a—“

“A what? A way to put off what you’re meant to be doing? Some kind of sick way to—to what? Reenact our teenage years?”

“I’m not _using_ anymore,” Jack hissed. “This is what I needed.”

“At some point, you needed _me_. Remember how that turned out?”

“What are you doing here, Kent?”

“Trying to get you to where you _should_ be.”

 _Out of this environment_ , Kent wanted to say. _Out this place where students drink this heavy all the time and where there are tests and papers to trigger your anxiety, not just the games. You’re sick. I understand now, you’re sick and can’t you see I care about you?_

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, he talked hockey, like they used to do when everything else got to be too much because the only way Kent could talk about love was on the ice. He thought he was being so obvious. A little player made of glass, anyone could see right through him.

And maybe if Kent provoked him enough, cursed until Jack hit back, it might convince him that what he was doing here was wrong and that out there, on the ice, it was right. But if he was being honest with himself? Kent wanted Jack to break, too.

Kent wanted Jack to hurt him like he’d done before, but Jack didn’t want to touch him. Not in any way that mattered.

Jack kicked him out, again.

Kent was done.

 

**2017**

“So why didn’t you?” Bitty says, on the phone with Kent after he gets home from work. It’s been a few months of texting and talking like this—through the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs. The Aces were out earlier this year. The Falconers made if further but were knocked out too. Now that it was officially the offseason, both Kent and Jack had more time. More time to relax. More time to get lost in their heads.

“Why didn’t I what? Come out publically?” Kent says. “Or why didn’t I punch that reporter in the face?”

Bitty smirks. “You did neither.”

“I wanted to do both.”

They’re low on some groceries, Bitty notices as he opens the fridge, mostly meat and milk, plus veggies for dinner. He’ll have to get to the store before it closes and shrugs on a lighter jacket. “If you wanted to, why didn’t you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to get arrested for assault—“

“Kent.”

The long sigh across the line says there’s more to the story than the usual. More than what Jack’s said about his own slow rise to a position he’s comfortable in to do the same, or his fear of the spotlight, or the insistence that he doesn’t want to be a poster child. Name calling and attacks also don't seem to be something that would slow Kent down.

“I said I wouldn’t talk about Zimms,” Kent says.

“This isn’t about him.”

“Not directly, I guess, no.”

Bitty ties his shoes and puts earbuds in his ears for the walk. “So, tell me.”

“I’ve been in the position to for years, right? With the C and my team backing me, I may take a hit, but it’d be—it’d be worth it, I think,” Kent says. “I really thought about it, when we won the cup.”

“But something stopped you.”

“At that point, Zimms was getting better. He was playing well in the NCAA and I knew he’d be able to get into the NHL and I—I didn’t want to be more of a burden on him than I already had been. _I_ could weather whatever shit came for me, sure. Jack, though? If he wasn’t already playing, he wouldn’t have had a chance.”

Bitty grabs his keys from the hook by the doors and heads out of the apartment. “He would have been able to deny any relationship with you.”

“Tacitly, yeah, we already do,” Kent says. “But there are full records out on why—on what he was in rehab for and those reporters _still_ want to spin stories like—like they don’t…” Kent’s suddenly silent.

Bitty looks at his phone, thinking the call might have dropped, but the clock is still ticking forward and the screen still has Kent’s name across it. It’s a lonely silence, on the other end. The wind blows past him and a car beeps across the street.

“Anything you’d do would affect him,” Bitty says, hoping Kent is still listening. “Even if you both deny it.”

“Yes,” he says, after a beat. “It’d affect you too, now, I guess.”

“Kent, sweetheart, it won’t be anything I haven’t already heard,” Bitty says.

“Zimms doesn’t worry? About—about you being together and—god, that isn’t how I meant to—“

“They’re not looking for that story,” Bitty says. “Not while I was at Samwell, anyway. It was easy for me to be the teammate.”

“Even when you live together?”

The door to the grocery story slides open and the noise of the street fades. “Nobody asks about Jack’s roommate situation.”

The funny thing is, Bitty hasn’t had a chance to see Kent’s face without pretense. Without the show of a game or the rigor of an interview or the sleek mask of a smile he’d had on at the kegster. But when Bitty talks to Kent on the phone, he can imagine small twitches of a smile or a frown or a crease between his eyes, mannerisms he has no idea are true or not. And now, as he picks at the broccoli, Bitty imagines Kent’s lips as a solid line and his eyes drifting.

“You’re still thinking about doing it,” Bitty says.

“I’m sick of hiding it,” Kent says. “You’re going to say I’m selfish, aren’t you? That I should be doing it for better reasons, or _think_ a little harder about it, or—fuck, I don’t know, man up, or some shit. No, you wouldn’t say that. _Bless him, he thinks he’s special,_ that’s more you.”

“Don’t you go putting words in my mouth,” Bitty says, words sharp as barbs in his mouth. The woman next to him in the cereal aisle jumps.

“Sorry, I—there’s no good reason. I’m not dating anyone, nobody on the team cares who I bone, I—“

“No,” Bitty says. “No, you don’t need a _reason_ to tell the truth, Kent.”

“There are going to be a lot of people that tell me I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“Yes, there will be,” Bitty agrees, eyeing the multipacks of butter in the refrigerated aisle. “But somehow, I think that already happens.”

“Are you _chirping_ me, Eric Bittle?”

“Might be.”

Kent laughs and it’s a good sound.

 

When Bitty gets back to the apartment, he bakes a batch of cookies that he thinks will make the journey to Las Vegas in a shipping container. Kent’s been getting cocky in his skills lately and Bitty thinks it’d be a good idea to remind him who the expert really is. They won’t be the prettiest after being jostled around, but they’ll taste like heaven, he’ll make sure of that.

He feeds one to Jack as he steps through the door.

“What do you think?”

“This a new recipe?” Jack asks, mouth half-full.

“Variations on a theme,” Bitty says and decides that the way Jack licks the crumbs off his fingers and searches for another means he likes it. Bitty divides the batch up in two, puts half on a plate on the counter, and the other half in a package to send across the country.

Jack’s been in a better mood lately. He’s been participating more in the Falconer’s outreach programs and giving a lot of his time to younger skaters. There are long days that he comes home well after dinner, but it’s those same days he’s buzzing with stories and settling onto their couch with an outstretched hand.

“Join me?” Jack says as he takes one more cookie and makes his way to the living room.

Bitty’s phone buzzes.

_Kent (8:13pm): You’re right, I want to come out._

_Kent (8:13pm): For me. I want to do it for me. But I want to do it right._

Bitty reads the texts over twice before deciding to hand the phone to Jack. He takes longer than Bitty, scrolling down to see if there’s more, but hitting the end and the texts bounce back up.

“What do you want me to say?” Jack asks.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” Bitty says. “How will this affect you?”

“Everyone knows we were in Juniors together, but it was nothing. I’m happy Kent feels he’s able to—“

“Not the _polished_ version, Jack!” Bitty says. “Not what the—lord, we’re alone here. Please, tell me. I can _see_ what you’re like whenever he comes up. How will this affect you?”

“Bits, you know that’s how I need to answer,” Jack says.

“That’s not—“ Bitty snatches the phone away from Jack. “Fine. _Fine then,_ if you still don’t want to talk then I’ll just—“

“Why do you care so much about this?”

Bitty can feel pressure behind his eyes and turns away. People have always told him his face was too expressive, that he couldn’t lie if he wanted to. He learned to tell the truth in pieces and smile so wide it would cover all the rest. But now, he can’t hold it back. “I keep thinking, what if that’s me, in the future? That I’ll just be—just become nobody to you. I can even hear how you’d say it. _Oh, Bittle? Just an old teammate_.”

“I’d never.”

“You do it all the time! _Oh, Kent? It was nothing. It would have ruined our careers.”_

“You’re _nothing_ like him.”

“Tell me _how.”_

“You don’t talk to me like I’m some helpless creature to be saved,” Jack says. “Like I’ll break at any moment and that if you just try hard enough, you’ll fix me. By the end of Juniors, I never felt like a person, only something to be—to get—fuck, Bits, there was no getting out of that except—“

Bitty’s expression darkened. “You _can’t_ blame that on him.”  

“No. No, I can’t. But he pushed so much on me and I kept taking and taking and had nothing left of me to give him back that I just—I feel like he _made_ me into nothing.”

Before, it would have been so easy to believe Jack when he said that. Bitty would have made Kent into the villain of this story and Jack the hero. Now, Bitty doesn’t know.  

“I loved him,” Jack says. “Is that what you want me to say? As much as I was capable of anything like that, but his love wasn’t something that made me good. Not like yours, Bits. Not like the love you give me.”

“You say that now,” Bitty says.

_“Don’t.”_

“I don’t want to be a reflection of who you are at this point in your life,” Bitty says. “I don’t want to be your wins or your losses.”

“You’re not. You’re more than that, you’re—“

“A person? Mhm, right,” Bitty says. He palms the phone from one hand to another, cool metal weight against his skin. “I should answer him.”

Jack’s stare reminds Bitty of cold mornings in Faber when he wasn’t certain of his place on the team. Of ducking and hoping that this time, he’d be good enough. It’s cold at the tips of his fingers and the promise of coffee after to keep him up for his morning classes. It’s more captain than friend or lover and Bitty thinks that’s a good thing, in this moment.

“What are you going to tell him?” Jack asks.

Bitty rips his eyes from Jack’s and looks back at his phone. “That he should do what’s best for him.”

“Tell him that I—tell him we should talk.”

Bitty frowns. “Sweetheart, you shouldn’t say that unless you mean it.” 

_Eric (8:47pm): You should be proud_

_Kent (8:48pm): I think I will be._

 

“I talked to management,” Kent says the next time Bitty answers one of his calls. “And they scheduled a press conference for a couple weeks from now and, shit, Eric—what if this is a mistake. What if I’ve—“

“Stop. You’re fine.”

“Am I?” His voice pitches higher. “It was all fine for _you_ , huh? Whatever they say about your school, it was like they were just _waiting_ for some queer kid to step up and it’s not like they’d expel you or—“

“I’ll hang up,” Bitty says.

“Shit,” Kent says. “Shit, I’m—I’m sorry that was completely—shit.”

“No, I get it. Maybe _fine_ isn’t—you’ll get through this and it’ll be good and it’s what you want,” Bitty says. He’s still at work, though the office is clearing out at the end of the day. He makes his way to an empty conference room at the end of the hall and shuts the door. “Did Jack—have you heard from him?”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just—no, never mind.”

“Does he know about this?”

“Of course he does,” Bitty says.

“Does he care?”

Bitty’s silence says too much.

Kent sighs and says, “not surprised. Should probably be used to this by now.”

“I just don’t know,” Bitty says. “I still don’t know what he’s thinking. It’s the whole reason I called you in the first place, remember?”

“And that sure went well.”

“Sure did. You get pies and I get—“

“Yeah,” Kent says. “What do you get?”

“A pen pal? Always wanted one of those.”

Kent snorts. “Convincing.”

When Bitty was small, learning jumps was easy. It was as if fear hadn’t solidified quite yet in his young mind and his body was so little that even blades and solid ice couldn’t shake him. He’d twist and fall and bruise but would get up without a problem. When he was a little bit bigger and Coach put him in football camp, his fear took the shape of soft boy’s bodies and brightly colored jerseys. He’d take a failed axel over the charge of another player, any day. It’s the first time he learned that it’s easier for him to fear other people because the dangers he created himself he can control. For Kent, Bitty thinks it’s something similar. And that’s why they’re both here, talking around the subject of a boy whose only true fear is himself.

“Would you come?” Kent says. “To Vegas, I mean, for the press conference. I know it’s last minute, but you _get_ all this shit and I think I need someone there, and I think Kit’s dying to meet you and—“

“Isn’t the whole point of a pen pal that we don’t meet up in person?”

“Oh,” Kent says. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry, I—“

“Of course I’ll come, hun,” Bitty says. “Stop worrying.”

“Awesome!” Kent says. “Um, I mean—thanks, Eric. It means a lot.”

“I know.”

 

Kent buys him a ticket as soon as Bitty makes sure he can take time off of work _(Did you ever think of marketing for professional sports? I know some people in the Northeast I could contact for you)_ and Bitty stares at his confirmation email, trying to remember exactly how it felt when he started as captain at Samwell.

Then, nobody at home knew about him. College was a whole different world, with different rules and different people. Unconditional love was an idea that got thrown around in both—Mama’s going to love you no matter what. Your friends are going to support you, whoever you are. But, like Shitty likes to say, families use love like currency. _Of course we’ll love you, but…_ or, _If you really loved us, you’d…_

When Bitty decided to talk to the reporter and let a little slip—a _he_ where a _her_ should be—then decided to talk again to a reporter from a different, bigger, paper, and say he had a loving boyfriend and great friends, he didn’t think too much about what waves would be made down the line. Samwell had made him feel like it _was_ the only thing to do. It doesn’t feel like advocacy when it’s just a few small words.

Bitty started to receive hate mail before he got a response from his parents. They already knew, of course, about the boyfriend. Not about the announcement.

_You know we love you, but you should have contacted your family before shouting about your personal life from the rooftops._

But Bitty’s done trying to be convenient. Done shutting up when someone he cares about says he should. _Especially_ done shutting up when strangers tell him he has no place in a community he built from sweat and blood and early mornings.

Bitty tells Jack he’s going to Vegas.

And Bitty tries so hard not to say, to not even think, _if you loved me you’d understand. If you remember at all what it was like for me my senior year, you’d be proud of him, too._

“You should go,” Jack says, though he looks away as he does. And it surprises Bitty.

“You sure? Because I know how you feel and it’s—“

“But you don’t.” Jack takes the baseball cap off his head and runs his fingers through his hair. “You don’t because I haven’t told you how I feel.” 

And… that’s a change.

“Oh, sweetpea,” Bity says.

Jack fiddles with the rim of his cap and opens his mouth slow and careful. “I haven’t been fair to you and I know that, but please, listen to me before you go? Just—I think I have a few things I should tell you.”

 

**2008**

There was a point in the year when any rink in Montreal became warmer than the outside air. When the walls of his home ice held in the heat instead of keeping it out and when Jack’s mother used to scold him for not wearing a scarf, or forgetting his gloves on the dining room table. He was built for the cold, he joked with her. Didn’t they breed him for this?

She slipped hand warmers into his jacket and an extra hat into his bag.

This was also the point in the year when Kent would ask for a ride to practices, instead of walking the half mile from his billet family’s house. Jack would pull up in his truck, hands going numb on the steering wheel, and tap on the horn until Kent dragged himself out. This early, for morning practices, the sun hadn’t risen yet. Scattered street lamps made little islands of light and Kent would step right through one every time, so Jack could see his lips curve up into a tired little smile before he slid into the passenger seat. Jack had asked him before if he wanted rides all year since it isn’t hard for him to swing by, but Kent refused. He said he liked the walk—that it woke him up and gave him time to find his head before putting on his skates.

Jack wanted more of a reason to see that unguarded, lazy grin. Smell him, bed-rumpled and sweet. He didn’t say this, though. Didn’t push it.

“Shit, man, the heat can go higher than this, can’t it?” Kent said, playing with the dials and blasting air, loud, into the car.

“The drive’s not long enough for it to warm up.”

Kent pulled his knees to his chest and blew air into his fingers. “Makin’ me freeze.”

It hadn’t snowed yet that year, but Jack could tell it was coming soon. Slick ice lined the roads in the early morning and the trees they passed carried frost on their branches.

“I can stop,” Jack said. “You can walk from here.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

Jack tilted his head and gave Kent a look out of the side of his eye. He pulled on the wheel and swerved to the curb. The car creaked as Jack put it in park.

“Saved you half the walk at least,” Jack said, savoring Kent’s pout.

“I’ll be late,” he said. “The coaches will yell and I’ll blame it on you.”

Jack leaned over stick shift. It was too dark to pick out the three freckles he knew lined Kent’s right jawline or even make out the color of the shirt that was peeking out from under his jacket, but he was radiating heat that was more inviting than the fireplace his dad was starting to light at night or his bed when the alarm went off every morning.

“Convince me to keep driving,” Jack said.

Kent leaned in swiftly and kissed him, knocking their noses together and sucking his bottom lip until Jack could feel the heat from it too.

“How’s that?” Kent whispered into his ear.

“Good enough,” Jack said and ran two fingers through Kent’s hair before getting the truck back in drive.

As the engine surged, Kent leaned back. “Your breath smells like ass, Zimms.”

Jack couldn’t find Kent’s shoulder to nudge with his eyes on the road, so he just laughed and said, “Yeah, yeah, love you too.”

It was a dumb thing to say, but taking it back would mean that it meant something and there would be nothing worse than acknowledging it. Kent said nothing if he’d noticed at all. He was staring out the window at the upcoming traffic light, tapping his foot to a beat that Jack couldn’t hear. It was faster than the ticking of the turn signal but slower than the beating of Jack’s heart.

When they pulled up to the rink, they were barely on time. The clock in the car read 5:58 and Jack fiddled with his seatbelt, trying to get his breathing in check.

“You alright?” Kent asked like he always did. Shit.

“Fine,” Jack said. He swallowed and jumped out of the car.

When they made it through the locker rooms and onto the ice, one of the coaches shouted out to them, “glad you finally made it, boys.”

“Sorry, coach,” Jack said.

“Took your time jerking each other off in the bathrooms again, Z?” Jud, one of the D-men, said under his breath as he passed.

“Come on, man,” Kent said. “Don’t say shit like that.”

Jud clicked his tongue. “Cocksucker.”

“Yeah, well at least I—“

 _“Parse,”_ Jack hissed and pulled him back. Jud skated away and Kent pulled himself from Jack’s grip. “He’s just joking.”

Kent looked at him like he wanted to say something back, but something they couldn’t say here. Not while their teammates had slowed their warmup to listen and stare and not while only minutes before they were alone in a car staring into each other’s eyes.

“Ha, yeah, right,” Kent said, chill creeping into his breath. “Just a joke.”

 

 

**2017**

There’s a lot Jack doesn’t remember from his last year in juniors. The memories he did have were frayed and blown out—a couple small injuries, the high of a few of the best games, his parents worrying more and more, and Kent. Kent’s hand on his back after practice, Kent’s glare across the dinner table when Jack stole his food, Kent’s smell beside him in bed when they fell asleep still half on top of each other. Kent and Kent and Kent.

There’s this phenomenon in psych, conditioned taste aversion. When an animal is fed normal food and they later get sick, they develop nausea every time they encounter that food again, even if it wasn’t that food that made them sick in the first place. Jack can’t handle the smell of Vodka (he’d always asked Shitty to put rum in the tub juice). Jack can’t handle the taste of the name _Kenny_ on his tongue (he slips up, sometimes, and later wants to throw up).

He isn’t going to say his fear of seeing Kent again off the ice is Pavlovian, that would be too easy, but it wasn’t something that he could control like Bitty hoped he could. Like the feeling right before he gets a panic attack, where he can either run and hide it from anyone around him, or stay and ask for help. The decision itself, that moment that his heart starts racing and he thinks _this is it, maybe this time I’ll stop breathing_ , pulls him further into that hole. That headspace where he’s unable to think, to say anything at all.

Bitty’s staring out the window of the apartment, steam from the cup of coffee gathering under his chin. His hair flares lighter silhouetted against the sun and he thinks this feels like home.

Jack hasn’t told Bitty everything, not yet. He can’t get himself to form the words if he’s just reintroducing himself to the sound. Just a couple stories about what it was like in the Q, who was on their team, who they liked, who they didn’t. It was always _they_ back then. Kenny and Zimms, taking on the world, trying not to set each other on fire.

Systematic desensitization is what the psychiatrists would call it. It feels like relearning a language.

Bitty’s getting on a plane this morning—a couple bags are stacked by the door—and still, Jack hasn’t been able to tell him that he wants to come too. That he bought a plane ticket the day after Bitty showed him his. It’s a selfish thing because he’s not interested going for Kent or even for Bitty, but for himself. He wants to stop feeling like the inevitable end to everything good in his life is chasing him, and no matter how fast he runs, it will always right behind him. Bitty was right, he’s been avoiding looking at it in the eye, the fear of how badly he could mess up. It’s about time he confronts it, yet he still can’t ask for help.

“I’ll see you in a week, honey,” Bitty says, gathering his things.

“Text me when you land.”

“Of course.” Bitty stands on his toes for a kiss and Jack brings him in close, hoping he isn’t about to make a mistake.

The door closes behind him and Jack decides he should pack, too. His plane leaves early tomorrow morning.

 

**2008**

Kent played like shit that practice. He was slow, uncoordinated. The puck flew by him and the sound of the coach’s voice was a buzzing mosquito in his ear. _What was that pass? Where’s your head today, Parson?_

The hilarious thing to Kent was Jack was fine. Every fucking time Kent spent his day off the ice tip-toeing around Jack’s feelings or helping to rebuild his little walls of self-control after they’ve fallen down, it looks like nothing at all had happened once he put on his skates. Jack was playing like he always did—effortlessly.

Was he not obsessing over the drive like he was? _Love?_ What was that? He thought he’d hallucinated until he saw Jack’s expression like he’d tasted something sour. Then, he knew he was never supposed to speak of it. It was an expression, nothing more. Bros being bros. Fuck.

Jud slammed into him and pinned him to the boards and Kent gasped as his chest got crushed.

Kent was still small. He didn’t know it yet, but he had two inches left, maybe two and a half, and many more pounds to put on in the next couple years. Jud still had the baby-face of a teen, but already had almost a sixty pounds on him.

“Thought you liked it like this,” Jud said as he leaned that massive weight into Kent.

“Asshole,” Kent hissed and shoved back, though he was only able to get enough force to wriggle away.

Jud laughed like it was a compliment as he skated away.

After practice, Kent stayed a little late to talk to the coaches and reassure them that it was just that he wasn’t feeling well that morning. His knee was acting up, or maybe he was catching a cold, he didn’t know. Anything to make them not see him as weak.

When he left, Jack’s truck was still parked out front. The engine was on and the inside was already warm.

“What did Jud say to you?” Jack asked.

Kent stared pointedly at his feet, scraping his muddy shoes on the dashboard. “What do you _think_ he said.”

“You’ve got to just ignore it,” Jack said. “Don’t say anything you might regret later.”

Kent played with the heat again—hotter, hotter. The air blasted into his face and he inhaled the stale air. “You going to start driving or what.”

“It’s my fault,” Jack said.

“Not everything’s about you, Zimms,” Kent said. “I’m a cocksucker with or without you around, don’t try to take credit.”

“I meant—about being late and—“

“Whatever.” 

Jack put the car into drive.

 

**2017**

Bitty texts Kent when the taxi pulls up to his apartment complex. Of course, he has a penthouse, Bitty thinks, though it’s more understated than he was expecting. The building on one of the further edges of the city and faces the desert instead of the lights.

Kent meets him at the door.

“Eric!” he says, swinging him into a hug and taking his bags. Eric also didn’t imagine Kent to be the touchy type, though what could he know?

A first look at his place doesn’t reveal much. Clean, modern tables and sofa, a scratching tower for Kit, though the cat is nowhere in sight, and lots of open space. He can see the kitchen when he steps in further—dishes crowding the sink and a standing mixer that has specks of something caught in unwashed blades. The sight makes Bitty smile.

“You must be tired so I’ll let you get set up in the guest room but before that, I have an important question for you,” Kent says, disappearing into what Bitty guesses is his bedroom. He returns three ties draped over his arm. “Which tie do you think says _the type of gay your grandparents will gossip about but won’t try to kick out of church_ , because I think—“

 Bitty points to the one on the far left, a red and blue striped classic style. “Play up the all-American thing.”

“I knew you’d be useful,” Kent says and throws the other two ties into a pile of discarded clothing peeking around the corner of his bedroom floor. He busies himself with showing Bitty the bathroom and the linens he can use, the kitchen and the supplies he’s required to use (“come on, Eric, how am I not going to ask for in-person lessons while you’re around?” “…can we order you different pans?” “Hell, yeah.”) and puts all his luggage in the spare room. They find Kit there too, lounging on the bed (“she thinks it’s _her_ room, I’m warning you”).

Bitty recognizes the hectic back and forth and the trail of words, one after another. The way Kent finds one sock, then the other, then loses the first in the laundry before deciding barefoot is better, anyway. The way he asks if Bitty’s hungry, if he’s thirsty, if he’s _really_ not hungry because there’s this great Chinese takeout place that knows his order and he’s halfway to his phone anyway, and—

“How are you feeling?” Bitty asks, trying to catch Kent with a lilting voice. Reel him back and remind him to breathe. Kent slows, a fraction like he’s tripping on air.

“Ready,” Kent says. “So fucking ready.”

 

That night, Bitty lets Kent order from the Chinese place he so obviously loves, with the promise that Bitty gets to pick which recipe they’ll work on together afterword. Kent agrees in a heartbeat.

“Have you been seeing anyone?” Bitty asks, mouth full of broccoli chicken.

“Asking for a friend?” Kent says. “Or asking if anyone has more than a casual stake in all this.”

Bitty frowns. “Asking _as_ a friend.”

“Some, here and there,” Kent says with a small shrug. “Never lasts long. The schedule is difficult. You know that. But it’s also all—ha, yeah, all this shit. The secrets, you know?”

“I know.”

Kent has decent control of his chopsticks but is no natural. He pokes at the noodles and they fall apart on his plate. “Sick of being a secret?”

“It’s worth it.”

Kent grabs his fork and uses it to pile the noodles onto his chopsticks, the stubborn fool. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be sick of it.” 

 

**2008**

“What if I just fucking did it?” Kent said. “Kissed you in front of all those people, what would you do?”

The roads are light now in the rising morning sun. They only had a half an hour before school started, but it was usually Jack’s favorite time of the day. Kent beside him, the high of a workout fading from his limbs, the rest of the day in front of him. Usually. But today, Jack’s heart is already twisted and beating painfully.

“You know we can’t,” Jack said.

 

**2017**

Jack knew his way through the Aces home rink. He only had one game here a year, but it wasn’t like most of these places had the same set up anyway. The same back entrances. The same sort of staff who would take one look at him and think he was supposed to be there, no question.

“The press conference is up the stairs to the right,” one woman dressed in a suit told him. “It’ll be starting in about half an hour.”

It’s at the end of the corridor that Jack hears that old voice only slightly more resonant than it had been at eighteen and with just the same amount of playful curl at the end. It’s an addicting sound, he knows, even aimed at someone else and trailing out an open door. All barb and wit, when he wants it to be. He listens just outside the room.

“…and there I was, half-naked and eating burnt mac and cheese straight from the stove when Bad Bob walks in.”

“No.” It’s Bitty’s voice.

“Swear to god. And it was the wrong half, to be clear. I almost dropped the pot. And what does he do? Just fucking grabs a soda from the fridge and sits down at the kitchen table. Doesn’t say a word.”

“What did you do?” Bitty asks.

“Nothing! Well, I finished the mac first because it was still fine and I was hungry.”

Jack takes the time of Bitty’s laugh to take a breath, fill his lungs, and walk in.

“I promise, my parents said they’d be back the next day.” 

Kent turns, stares, scowls.

“Hey, Kenny,” Jack says.

“The fuck.”

“Honey,” Bitty says, his eyes wide and flying between him and Kent. “What are you doing here?”

“I—Bits, you were right. You’ve been right for a while and I thought—I should be here for this,” Jack says. “Kenny, I should have told you first but I knew—“

“You don’t know shit,” Kent says.

Jack closes his eyes, the spikes in Kent’s flying true. “I came because—“

  _“Now?”_ Kent says. “Now you come, when it finally involves you?”

It isn’t what Jack had in his mind. He had imagined a smile and a _hey, man_ or a _missed you_. Not Kent standing from his chair just so he can get further away from him. Not the hurt in the way he’s clenching his jaw.

“I’m doing this, Zimms,” Kent says. “You can’t tell me not to.”

“What?” Jack says. “I’m not—“

“I’m done hiding for your sake.”

Jack doesn’t understand. “My sake?”

“Oh, Jack,” Bitty says.

“But I didn’t ask you to anything.”

“No,” Kent says. “You never did, but I did everything you wanted anyway.” He talks to Bitty alone when he says, “I want him to leave.”

Bitty, whose love means more to him than he can say, turns to him with the same cold eyes as Kent’s. Jack would do anything for him, didn’t he see? He came here. He thought he understood. He thought he was doing the right thing. It’s so hard for him to stand here without falling apart and Bitty should be proud that he can do it at all.

“You should go, Jack,” Bitty says.

 The same woman from downstairs pops her head into the room. “Ten minutes, Mr. Parson.”

Kent nods and reaches for his suit jacket, hanging up on the wall.

And Jack? Jack follows the woman out, dumbly making his way back down the hall with the buzzing in his ear growing louder and louder.

 

Jack watches from the very back of the room, sitting by the entrance so nobody can see him. So Kent won’t spot him from his place on the podium.

As soon as he starts, though, Jack wishes he were close enough to see every quirk of Kent’s lips as he spoke. The wicked upturn he’s perfected to put the press at ease. The subtle wrinkle of his brow Jack used to notice when he was nervous. The flick of his hand that Jack doesn’t recognize that makes him wonder where he picked it up.

Jack expects it to feel like the end of something. Feel like he’s losing his grip on the future he’s worked so hard to make, watching secrets pour out of Kent’s mouth like curses, but it isn’t that. It isn’t that at all.

“I won’t be made to feel ashamed for who I loved,” Kent says, and though he can’t see past the lights and cameras, his gaze reaches back to the last row of chairs. “Because I was never ashamed of them.”  

And Jack feels himself still for the first time since he got on the plane that morning.

The rest goes well. Kent’s speech is smooth and poised. He talks about what it was like growing up in a homophobic environment—knowing some people had your back, but also knowing it was never quite enough. The stress it can put on young players. Or, even veteran players. He talks about the support he has now. The team by his side. The plans he has with You Can Play. He smiles that patented Kent Parson smile and it almost looks as relaxed as Jack remembers it being when it was just them two at his dining room table, sharing dinner after practice.

Kent doesn’t answer any questions, but when he leaves the podium, it doesn’t look like he has anything to hide.

 

**2009**

“But I love you, Jack.”

“If you did, you’d promise not to tell.”

 

**2017**

_Kent (1:32pm): I’m going to talk to Jeff for a minute but I’ll meet you downstairs_

_Kent (1:34pm): Tell Zimms he should come_

 

Bitty finds Jack sitting alone by the stairs, quiet but not yet panicked. He can tell by his breathing, even this far behind him. He can tell by where he places his hands and how his feet are angled.

“Jack, hun,” he says, touching his arm at the elbow and trying not to startle him. “Did you—were you in there for it?”

“I saw it,” Jack says. “Can you—will you tell him that I—”

“Tell him yourself.”

“He doesn’t want to see me.”

“I love you,” Bitty says. “But you’re an idiot sometimes.”

“I did it all wrong.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Can I make it up to him?”

Bitty holds a hand out for him to stand. “Slowly.” 

 

Kent finds them at the entrance and leads them out. “Let’s get out of here,” he says and points a lazy finger at Bitty. “Don’t let me touch social media for at least a day.”

It isn’t hard to spot Kent’s car. It’s flashy and yellow and far too low to the ground. Not so much Bitty’s taste, but it suits Kent just fine out here in the desert. Jack follows a couple steps behind, still so unsure. Still, so very much Jack.

“Get in the front, hun,” Bitty says as he climbs in the back seat. “Lord knows you need the leg room.”

Kent plays with the dials and finds a radio station playing rock Bitty’s never heard as he speeds out of the lot. Everything’s alien outside the window—the types of buildings and the layout of the streets and the strange vegetation. The sky even looks too large, too heavy, to stay up where it is. Bitty can’t see a single cloud.

But instead of focusing on the road, Bitty watches Jack bounce his leg and look from the windshield to dashboard to Kent, who is driving with one hand on the wheel and his other resting across the open window.

“It was good,” Jack says.

Kent says nothing, tapping out the bass of the radio tune with his thumb. The sleeves of the sleek button down are rolled up to his elbow and his watch flashes as the metal reflects the sun.

Jack keeps the earnest look on his face, though Bitty knows Kent can’t see it. Won’t want to look. Jack says, “I think the response will be positive.”

“What will you say?” Kent asks.

“To what?” Jack says.

“What will you say when they ask you about Juniors?” Kent says. “You know they will.”

Bitty notices they’ve passed the turnoff to Kent’s apartment. They keep driving, further and further away from the center of the city. Further into the desert where birds circle the clear skies and the heat comes off in waves Bitty can see across the rocks.

“I’m not going to lie,” Jack says.

The engine revs when they reach flat, open road, loud and insistent. On either side, the buildings drop away. Beyond them are only low shrubs and open sky. The landscape rolls by with the rush of wind stealing away the sound of the guitar from the radio. Melodic, weeping riffs fly off into the dust and are lost to Bitty’s ears. He checks his phone and sees the signal flicker from one to zero bars.

Kent pulls over on a gravel road that peels off into the rising red-tinted rock formations. He slows and parks and throws the key into the driver’s side cup holder, but still looks straight ahead.

“But what will you _say,”_ Kent asks once more.

It’s so quiet without the music and the tires on the road that the next shaky breath Jack takes fills the car.

“I’ll say that I was once in a relationship with a boy I called Kenny. We were young and it didn’t work out how we wanted it to, no matter how much we cared for each other,” Jack says.

Kent bends his forehead into the wheel, his wrist popping veins as he grips the leather. There are tears on his cheeks, Bitty can only see a sliver from the angle he has behind him, but they’re there, shining on reddened skin. Kent’s eyes are screwed shut, his lips parted. He gasps.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says and lifts a hand to Kent’s shoulder. It’s firm and heavy like if he tries hard enough, he can pass his apology straight through Kent’s flesh. “I never said it enough. But I hope you’ll let me now. And I hope—fuck, I hope you’ll let me be there for the tomorrows we have left.” 

 

**2009**

“Hey, Zimms, hey,” Kent said, holding him from behind. “Breathe for me, alright? There are so many other games. It’ll be fine. One at a time. Tomorrow and tomorrow. We’ll do it all together, right?”

 

**2017**

Bitty kisses Jack under the lights of the rink, where a hundred cameras can see them because he can. Because he knows Jack wants it and because yes, he’s so sick of hiding.

_Kent (9:52pm): Hell yeah, Eric!_

_Kent (9:53pm): And just fyi, caught the most flattering screenshot of Jack from that_

_Kent (9:53pm): [attached jack_googlyeyes_zimmermann.jpg]_

_Kent (9:53pm): For blackmail, if needed_


End file.
